Water is a precious commodity and is becoming ever more valuable by reason of the rise in world population and the increased demand for food caused by this. Supplying clean water to people is a huge logistical problem faced not only by developing nations. Only 3% of the world's water supply is available as drinking water. The shortage of water can develop into a water crisis above all in countries with low precipitation. The creation of new living spaces is prevented in many locations by reason of a prevailing water shortage. For example, the urbanisation of desert or steppe regions is extremely problematic on account of the shortage of water. From an economic point of view, water conservation and water storage is even encouraged in areas with higher precipitation. Water reservoirs and underground water collecting containers are known as arguably the simplest hydrological systems for water storage. In order to tackle the water shortage problem, there is a demand for specially adapted technologies for water treatment and water storage.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,120,210 B1 describes a method for the storage and transportation of water, e.g. rainwater, wherein water is guided under a hydrological potential through porous material of a natural channel, e.g. a river valley, and is then supplied to the end user.
Furthermore, WO 2005/123597 A1 discloses an aquitransistor which contains a multiplicity of perforated pipelines which are embedded in a matrix of porous materials. For filtering and storage purposes, water is guided with a hydrodynamic potential through the porous material of the aquitransistor before it flows into the perforated pipelines from where it is siphoned off by a pump device.
The known water-purification and/or water-storage methods and devices have the disadvantage that they cannot be used independently of the geographical conditions and/or soil conditions at that location. For example, water losses or losses in quality can occur. In order to improve the quality of the purified water, an additional water purification procedure is often required which in turn is very cost-intensive.
Apart from drinking water, a huge amount of water is also used for irrigation, watering or landscaping. For example, fields, meadows, golf courses or parks are typical landscapes, which require irrigation.
In the current state of art, a large part of the water, which is used for irrigation or watering, is wasted. Although new devices have been developed, e.g. drip-irrigation networks, the water wetting the soil is normally evaporated very rapidly, i.e. in a matter of days, since interstitial capillary forces of the soil draw the water up near to the surface, where the evaporation is intensified.
Another big disadvantage of current state of the art irrigation systems is their high installation and maintenance cost. Especially for the design of golf courses, which have to be heavily watered, the installation of appropriate irrigation systems is very costly. Moreover, since golf courses should be functional, but also aim to fulfil requirements of ecologic landscaping and the protection of the environment, integrating irrigation systems into the landscape is a challenge.
Specific problems of irrigation of golf course, which cause large costs, are water costs, fertilizer cost, pesticide costs, the amount of managed turf or the amount of watered turf. If a more efficient watering of golf courses could be realized, the above mentioned problems could be overcome, and costs could be saved.